


Forces at Play

by henrydavidthoryoda



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hearing Voices, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22143238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henrydavidthoryoda/pseuds/henrydavidthoryoda
Summary: In which there is more than one way to win a game, and a rebellion.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Forces at Play

**Forces at Play**

"When you see a good move, look for a better one." -Emanuel Lasker

*

You flinch as the needle-thin teeth of a creature clamp into the flesh of your friend.

Finn lets out a pained howl.

You bastard, he yells at his long-haired opponent.

Finn pounds his fist on the table and accuses the Wookie, you cheating bastard.

His opponent responds to this affront on his honor with a guttural noise you recognize as a chuckle.

You take a breath. You remind yourself it is the holograms that are being attacked. The only part of Finn currently in danger is his ego. Your friends are safe. For now.

You take another breath.

Your name is Rey.

You are aboard the Millennium Falcon.

You are going to raise a rebel army, defeat the First Order, and restore peace to the galaxy. Someday.

But, right now, you are watching your friends play a game.

The game takes place on a board divided into two opposing sides. The game is played by moving pieces across the board and attacking opposing pieces. The game is over when only one piece remains. The game is won by being in control of that piece.

You have friends on both sides of the board.

Finn’s piece sighs one last virtual sigh and fades to nothing while Chewbacca’s piece roars in triumph, soon to be echoed by its gleeful master. Though Finn still has a number of pieces on the board, he throws up his hands in defeat.

Whelp, that’s the game, he says. Finn presses a button on the table and the ghostly creatures fizzle out of sight.

Congrats on ‘winning’ another one, he says to the Wookie, a little too enthusiastically.

Poe’s laughter can be heard from his position in the pilot chair.

Good thing the First Order doesn’t fight with tabletop combat, Poe comments.

You do not add your own clever contribution to the banter. You are confused.

But Finn still had so many pieces left, you state bluntly. The game wasn’t over.

He took out my most powerful guy, Finn responds, glaring at Chewie. There was no way I could win with who I had left.

You look around at your friends, you feel the weight of Luke’s lightsaber in your belt.

How could you know that, you ask. How could you make that choice?

How could you be sure there wasn’t another way?

That’s just how the game works, Finn says. Especially when you know your opponent is good.

Good _at cheating_ , Poe corrects loudly from the other room.

Chewie growls a rather rude retort and the three descend into a bickering match that lasts all the way back to base.

Leia greets you, all the rebels greet you.

Hope lights like fire in their eyes when they look at you. You feel yourself start to burn.

You wonder if he feels it too.

*

You flinch as energy sparks from your fingertips and overloads the ship you were trying to force to the ground.

You scream as the ship explodes in mid-air. His gaze shifts from the smoking wreckage to you. Even in your horror you can feel his shock and, you realize in disgust, his pleasure.

This time, your friends are in danger.

This time, the danger is you.

You try to take a breath. Can’t.

Rey, he says.

You try to tune him out. Can’t.

He says, Don’t you see what they’re doing to us?

You suppress a scream.

Your name is Rey.

You are on the planet Kajimi.

You are going to locate a Sith pathfinder, defeat the First Order, and restore peace to the galaxy. Or, at least, you were.

But, right now, you just killed one of your friends. With the same power you are supposed to be using to save them.

He is saying something but you are lost in your own mind and then.

You are aboard a ship and.

Your other friends are saying it was him, not you, and.

You know they are wrong and.

You are looking at your hands and.

You are losing your mind and.

Your friends are looking at you and.

You learn that fear burns hotter than hope.

*

He was not pleased about the killing, you realize, but that you were the killer.

Because now, he is a little less alone in the universe.

Because now, when he reaches out his hand, the blood that stains it will look all too familiar.

*

I know the beginning of your story, a shadow of him says.

Images of suffering flash through your mind. You hear screams, some you recognize as your own from a past long buried in your memory.

No, you say. Your blade strokes come at him in a blind frenzy, easily dodged.

Blue finally meets red and the evidence of your treacherous blood flares before your eyes.

Yes, he says. But it doesn’t have to end like this.

He pulls back and then you are alone on his ship and you.

You are not sure who you are anymore.

*

You flinch as your reflection bears its needle-sharp teeth at you. You reel back from the dark image of yourself and fall and fall and fall until you are sprawled on stone, sandpaper voices slipping vicious thoughts through your mind.

You take a breath. You try to convince yourself that it was not you bearing those teeth, just a trick meant to scare you.

You remind yourself that your friends are safe. Safe because you left them. Safe because you put a sea (soon to be a star system) between them and you. Safe because only you have the power for this next part (even if you can’t be trusted to control that power).

Yes, your friends are safe.

But the voices do not stop.

Dark, dreadful whispers and.

Don’t be afraid of who you are, and.

You’re the strongest fighter we have, and.

Take my hand, and.

Then, you are on your feet once more facing a different, dark reflection. He is here, impossibly, really here.

You are so fucking tired of staring in mirrors. (You once saw a glimmer of yourself in this one but you can see now the glass is cracked, and so is the boy.)

You draw the weapon of a ghost and prepare to shatter him.

Blue meets red and he screams, stop.

It doesn’t have to be this way, he says. You bring your weapon down, harder.

You don’t have to listen to them, he says and you know he can hear the chorus in your head singing, kill him, kill him, kill him.

You cut a red stripe across his chest. Fabric singes, flesh burns. Tears form in your eyes.

Why should I listen to you, you say.

He drops to one knee, hurt. Meets your blade. Meets your gaze.

Because they’re using me too, he says.

And suddenly the crashing waves are silenced and you see the shadow of a boy, small and cowering, as his mentors (later, _your mentors_ ) scream abuse because he failed to control himself and now something or someone is broken and, later, as figures in dark masks and dark robes hover over the same small boy and tell him seductive, terrible things about who he is and who he could be if he would just.

Take my hand, he pleads.

He withdraws his weapon, drops it on the rocks. He holds out a gloved hand, defenseless.

We can leave all of this, he offers. We can be free.

But you are not so easily seduced. 

You run him through with your blade.

The waves roar; the voices roar.

You can feel his shock and, you realize in disgust, your pleasure.

He tries to take a breath. Can’t.

He tries to speak. Can’t.

You feel him fading. This boy, this pawn, this piece on a board.

And, in the space between his dying gasps, you hear a new voice.

It is a quiet, calm voice. You can barely make out what it is saying amidst the roar.

But as you look into his dimming eyes and feel his fear, you hear the voice ask.

Is this how order is restored?

Is this the way of the Jedi?

Perhaps, you answer. But it is not my way.

And you recognize the voice as your own.

You touch your hand to the hole in his side and use the power that demanded death to heal.

*

You are still learning who you are.

You have just given your life force to a boy who has killed people you love, a boy who has tried to kill you. A boy who, like you, has a beginning to his story but not an ending. Not yet.

You get in his ship and start charting a new path.

*

He gets up.

He thinks about his past choices and.

Chooses to follow you.

*

You flinched as the dead thing reached towards you with its decaying flesh.

You flinched as the dead thing broke the boy who followed you against the rocks.

You flinched as your own skull fell against the jagged stone floor.

But, now, you are watching your friends play a game.

(You can feel them, high above you, as they pilot and aim and fire and die and die and die.)

It’s a lot like the game you watched them play on a ship not so long ago.

Yes, the board is a little bigger. Yes, the stakes are a little higher.

But the rules are pretty much the same. So they think.

Your friends do not know it yet, but they are not just players. They are pieces, too.

Your friends do not know it yet, but their most powerful piece has been claimed.

You are lying on your back, looking up.

The voices hiss, Rey the Palpatine.

Rey the Puppet.

Rey the Pawn.

Laughter from a resurrected past echoes through the chamber. The game is over, the dead thing thinks.

But, when you look up, there are still pieces on the board.

There are still moves to be made.

*

You close your eyes.

Can you hear it, you ask them.

You look into thousands upon thousands of flight decks, holding bays, engine rooms, weapon commands. You look into the eyes of your friends, the eyes of members of the resistance you recognize, and the eyes of an innumerable amount you don’t.

You look at your own face reflected in the glass of a million hard, dark masks.

You look at him.

Can you hear it, you repeat.

Not my voice, you say. Your own.

Listen. I know that it is loud right now but.

Be with me, for just a moment.

Listen.

Not to the orders, not to the propaganda.

Not the threats, the promises, the lies.

Not the truths you believed just because of who told them to you.

Listen.

You don’t have to play this game.

You still have a choice.

You can claim yourself.

Listen.

Who does it say you are?

What is it asking you to do?

How will you move?

*

Later, the suns are hot on your back as you put the past to rest.

A desert traveler wants to know who you are.

My name is Rey, you say.

Rey what? She asks.

Just Rey, you reply.

*

He is waiting for you when you’re done and he.

Takes your hand.

And you move far, far away into a future that you claim for yourself.


End file.
